Brand new K'taka CM Jagadish Shettar embroiled in land scam

Bangalore, Jul 12: Trouble seems to be knocking the doors of Jagadish Shettar even before his swearing-in as the new Chief Minister. He has been caught in an illegal land row and a complaint has been filed against him in court on Wednesday.

Shettar has been accused of illegally freeing close to 178 acres of land in the outskirts of Bangalore from government control during his tenure as Revenue Minister in the Janata Dal-Secular-BJP coalition government.

According to the complaint filed in the Lokayukta court, the government had acquired 376 acres in Dasanapura for the purpose of setting up a market for farmers to directly sell their produce. Shettar's illegal involvement had caused a loss of Rs 250 crore as per current market rate according to the complaint.

The complaint was lodged by Bangalore-based resident and social activist SM Chethan who claimed that Shettar was behind denotifying 178 acres of government land. The complaint, however, does not accuse Shettar from benefitting from the deal financially but on the other hand caused a huge loss to the state exchequer.

Lokayukta court Judge NK Sudhindra Rao commented that he would decide on Jul 21 if a probe needs to be ordered in the case. Shettar is one of many BJP ministers and legislators who has been involved in the illegal land denotification scam. With the land denotification, the benefit from the market value of the property rests with the owner, while the compensation offered by the state government is much lower.